March 30, 1964: The state agrees to buy the summit of Mount Washington from Dartmouth College. The cost: $150,000. The state gets 50 acres, the Summit House, the old Tip Top House and building housing the Mount Washington Observatory.
March 31, 2002: A Concord man found dead in his Hall Street apartment was murdered, the police announce. Tobby Publicover, a 28-year-old described as a “gentle giant” by his mother, died of a gunshot wound.
March 31, 1992: Gov. Judd Gregg says he will leave after two terms to run for the departing Warren Rudman’s seat in the U.S. Senate.
March 31, 1731: Four years after Concord’s settlement begins, townspeople appropriate 10 pounds “for the instruction of the children in reading, etc.” The first teacher is Hannah Abbot, 30. The following year, the town will order the selectmen to “find books for the use of the inhabitants . . . on the town’s cost.”
April 1, 2000: Concord’s Matt Bonner gets a taste of Final Four basketball as a freshman, scoring four points and grabbing two rebounds in 14 minutes of play. His team, the University of Florida, defeats North Carolina, 71-59, to advance to the championship game.
April 1, 1817: There is still “good passing on ice on the river with horses,” Benjamin Kimball, a Merrimack River ferryman, writes in his diary.
April 1, 1891: William M. Chase, a prominent Concord lawyer and longtime school board member and a trustee of Dartmouth College, is appointed an associate justice on the state Supreme Court.
April 1, 1878: Shortly after midnight, April Fools pranksters dig up the body of executed murderer Joseph Lapage. They take it to the State House yard and suspend it from a gibbet-shaped water pipe frame. Special Detective E.B. Craddock and Officer Foster cut it down and bring it to Foster’s stable behind the Phenix Hotel.
April 2, 2003: After nearly 14 months of searching, the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire has found five potential bishops from around the country from which its members can choose, officials announce. The five finalists include the Rev. Canon Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who, if elected, would become the first openly gay man to head an Episcopal diocese in the United States. Despite considerable controversy, Robinson will be elected.
April 2, 1851: Concord’s town meeting votes to end the tolling of bells at funerals. The practice, the resolution says, “is productive of no good, and may, in case of the illness of the living, result in evil.”
April 3, 1865: Edgar L. Carr of Pittsfield, an assistant surgeon with an infantry regiment, writes in his diary: “A day of rejoicing to the American people and especially to the brave army that have been in the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond. Our army took possession of both places this morning. . . .We went through the city of Petersburg; it is a fine place. No Union sentiment was exhibited, except among the colored portion.”
April 3, 1909: In perhaps the first full-page automobile ad in the Monitor, Concord dealer Fred Johnson describes in detail the new Buick “Model 17 Touring Car.” It has five seats, two in front, three in back, a steering wheel rather than a tiller, four cylinders and 30 horsepower. A cloth folding top for rainy days is optional. The price: $1,750. It is the first decade of the popularization of the automobile. In 1900, there were 50 cars registered in New Hampshire. By 1910, there will be 3,500.
April 3, 1905: Douglas Everett is born. Everett will become a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic hockey team, win a silver medal and be inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.
